Employee Retention Policy (Part 2)

One of the common myths that new hires have is that their pay is somehow related to performance. Empirical evidence has shown that how much you make is simply a result of how much you came in at. Basically, it is all based on the amount of salary you negotiated when you first got hired. If you happened to have figured out what market salaries were at the time and the company was in desperate need of you, you may have gotten yourself a sweet deal. But if you didn’t have these two pieces of information, chances are you got screwed. Your young, naïve negotiating skills were no match for the ruthless Human Resources and Hiring Managers, who convinced you they are doing you a favor by giving you an offer, any offer.

In due time, the underpaid employee will realize he is underpaid. So management will temporarily alleviate his concerns by giving him slightly higher raises so that he can “catch up,” throw him an extra 0.5% here and there. The employee will be encouraged, and thus work harder so that he can get a higher raise again next year.

The only problem is, mathematically, you can never catch up. You would need to get at least triple the raise that everyone else gets to ever catch up. Of course, that will never happen because they don’t want you to catch up. You’re the best deal in town. You work hard and they aren’t paying you shit. “Best piece of ass in Tijuana, and it’s only $10 bucks.”

Eventually, however, all these hard working engineers realize they’re underpaid. Management sees the gig is up and encourages these employees to find another job offer so that they can give them "a good counteroffer" (see previous posting called Employee Retention Policy). Of course, when they do find a new job, they take it. And this time they make sure that they get hired in at a high salary.

But not everybody leaves the Shitshow. Because an employee retention policy that encourages high performers to leave will encourage certain others to stay. Who? The grossly overpaid and the grossly underperforming, of course. (See postings about Bob) Why would they leave? They have the Shitshow by the balls. But somebody’s gotta do the actual work. So once again, the Shitshow needs to go find some more new hires. Repeat cycle.

Because the Shitshow only employs the overpaid and the incompetent, I throw rocks.